Staci Bernard Roth's Thoughts on Words and the World

It’s been over a month since the 1145th anniversary of his coronation, but Alfred the Great is on my mind. It’s probably because my semester has just ended, and I’ve been reflecting on the past school year. I welcome any wisdom that can help me reflect, and where better to look for wisdom than in the rule of King Alfred?

According to Asser, Alfred possessed a “sapientiae desiderium” (“desire for wisdom”*), particularly in the “liberalem . . . artem” (“liberal artes”**). His mother, Osburh, encouraged his love of learning when she showed a book to Alfred and his brothers and promised it to whichever son could memorize it first. Alfred, the youngest, won. Years later, he passed down this tradition of learning by providing teachers for his own children and “omnibus pene totius regionis nobilibus infantibus et etiam multis ignobilibus” (“all the noble children in the entire region, and also many common ones”). Making education available to “common” children anticipates much later movements toward universal education.

The young Anglo-Saxon students “utriusque linguae libri, Latinae scilicet et Saxonicae” (“read books in both languages, namely Latin and Saxon [English]”). Alfred was painfully aware of how important both Latin and English were. Although he had read English from a young age, Latin came only later and with the help of “magistros” (“experts”) from “ultra mare” (“beyond the sea”)–whom he rewarded with “magna potestate” (“great power”)–as well as, ultimately, “divino instinctu” (“divine inspiration”).

He knew that he was not alone in his ignorance of Latin. In the preface to his translation of Pope Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis (Pastoral Rule, known more commonly as Pastoral Care), he famously wrote, “SwæclæneheowæsoðfeallenuonAngelcynneðætswiðefeawawæronbehionanHumbreðe ðiora ðeningacuðen understondanonEnglisc,oððefurðumanærendgewritofLædeneonEngliscareccean;ondicweneðættenohtmonigebegiondan Humbre næren” (“So thoroughly had it [learning] declined in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English, or even translate a written letter from Latin to English; and I think that there were not many beyond the Humber”***). After this demonstration of England’s state of educational disrepair, Alfred points out the dangers of an educational and religious system that relies on a little-known language to transmit knowledge and enjoins the reader to

“[g]eðenchwelc witu usða becomonforðisse worulde,ða ða wehitnohwæðer ne selfe ne lufodon ne eacoðrum monnum nelefdon” (“remember that punishment then befell us in this world, when we neither loved it [learning] ourselves nor passed it down to other men”). The “punishment” to which Alfred refers is undoubtedly the Viking attacks in which “hit eallforhergodwæreondforbærned” (“it all was ravaged and burned”) and before which “ða ciricean giondeallAngelcynnstodonmaðmaondbocagefylda” (“the churches throughout all England stood filled with treasures and books”). Alfred points out that people had received “lytlefiorme“ (“little benefit”) from those books, though, because the books “næron onhiora agen geðiodeawritene” (“were not written in their own language”). The suggestion is, of course, that the inability to read and the ignorance it fostered were responsible for decades of suffering at the Vikings’ hands.

Although today most would not blame the Viking invasions on God’s anger at the state of education in Anglo-Saxon England, we can still admire Alfred’s prescience and intellect. His life and career reveal that learning was no less important than–and inexorably connected to–other aspects of kingship and citizenship, including military savvy and prowess. This lesson, certainly, is as valuable today as it was in the ninth century.

In a professional development workshop today, someone used the word “relevancy.” I don’t remember who said it or what the context was (thanks to last night’s insomnia), but I do remember the word. I don’t remember anyone ever telling me that “relevancy” is not a word, or that it is an unfortunate or undesirable choice for whatever reason, but I do know that I don’t like it. I much prefer “relevance.” Some sources, such as Grammarist and the folks at the English Language and Usage Stack Exchange, state that the forms are interchangeable although the former claims that “relevance” is preferred. For what it’s worth, the OED notes the first use of “relevancy” in 1678 and that of “relevance” in 1787. Looking at “-ancy” and “-ance” in isolation, however, reveals more information. According to the OED, “-ancy” comes from the Latin “-ntia” and relates to a “quality or state.” On the other hand, “-ance”–which comes from Latin but via Old French–relates to action. It would seem, then, that if once were to take a prescriptive perspective, “relevancy” would be the preferable word. I guess the only thing left for me to do is to deal with it.

Are there words or forms of words that drive you crazy, even if they shouldn’t?

In my last post, I mentioned contranyms, words that have two opposite meanings. One word that’s often mentioned in lists and discussions of these words is “cleave.” “Cleave,” however–as some have pointed out–is not technically a contranym because “cleave” meaning “to split” and “cleave” meaning “to adhere” are actually two different words, having derived from two separate words: the former from the Old English clíofan or cléofan via the Middle English cleoven and the latter from the Old English clífan or clifian or cleofian via the Middle English clive orclēve or cleeve.

A word with similar meanings is “clip.” “Clip” can mean, of course, “cut” or “attach,” particularly with . . . clips. The former seems to have come from the Old Norse klippa via the Middle English clippen; interestingly, the earliest example cited it the Oxford English Dictionary is from the Ormulum, written about 1200: to clippenn swa þe cnapess shapp (to snip like a boy’s foreskin). The latter, on the other hand, seems to derive from the Old English clyppan, “embrace.” Genesis A (c. 1000) uses it to mean “clutch” in the story of Noah when dizziness þæs halgan . . .heortan clypte(clutches the holy man’s heart). The earliest use of “clip” in its more modern sense didn’t appear until Elizabeth Banks’ 1902 Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl: “Page after page passed from under her pen. Then, clipping a dozen sheets together, she read them over.”

A true contranym appears in the form of “trim.” In the sense of both “cut” and “decorate,” the word derives from the Old English trymman or trymian, which meant, according to the OED, “To make firm or strong; to strengthen, confirm to give as security; to arm or array (a force); to settle, arrange; to encourage, comfort, exhort.” Our modern definitions hark back to only to 1530 (for “cut”) and 1547 (for “decorate”).

There you have it: three words, six meanings, but only one true contranym.

(Thank you to the Oxford English Dictionary, without which this post would have been impossible.)

Over breakfast this morning, I was telling my daughter about an essay I’m writing. “I’ve written the sad part,” I said, “so it’s all downhill the rest of the way.” She was curious about my use of “downhill.”

“Isn’t that negative?” she asked.

“I suppose it can be.” After all, I explained, going downhill is easier than going uphill, but for many people, “down” has negative connotations. (Think: Hell.) The Oxford English Dictionary states that the word can be used figuratively as well as literally, but I wasn’t able to find a definition with positive connotations. The word does, however, appear on some lists of contranyms (or auto-antonyms or Janus words), words that possess two opposite meanings. Recently, in the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s Lingua Franca blog, Anne Curzan speculates on whether there’s a difference between “going downhill” and “all downhill from here/there” and reminds us of the importance of context.

Despite some people’s inclination to label “downhill” a contranym (or an auto-antonym or a Janus word), Curzan points out that this label is not quite accurate; after all, “easy” and “bad” are not quite opposites. For now, if I need a label, I’ll refer to “downhill” as “one of those interesting linguistic things.”

This evening, I read an PhotoAbility Article profiling Deborah Davis, whose business, PhotoAbility, provides stock images of people who happen to have disabilities. The people in the photos are doing the same sorts of things that people without disabilities do, and the photos can illustrate articles on just about anything. Ideally, the use of these images in mainstream media will “normalize” people with disabilities. (Full disclosure: I’ve been living with multiple sclerosis for twenty years, so I have a vested interest in this topic.)

The article was fine, but I wish the reporter had followed Ms. Davis’ example and used people-first language. People-first language is what it sounds like. Instead of writing “disabled people,” for example, one would write “people with disabilities.” The difference may seem negligible, but think about it: Which should we prioritize–one’s humanity or one’s diagnosis, which is but one facet of that humanity? In the article, where Davis mentions “someone with a disability,” the reporter refers to “images of disabled people.” In the next paragraph, Davis brings up “a person with a disability,” shortly after which the reporter mentions “photos of disabled people.”

Not every individual or organization agrees with using person-first language. For example, many in the Blind, Deaf, and Autistic communities equate it with feelings of shame and/or attempts to distance the person from the disability. I respect these views and realize that it is up to people to define themselves. Because Davis used people-first language, though, the reporter should have followed suit.

Yesterday my Facebook news feed revealed a meme comparing Hillary Clinton to Adolph Hitler. (I will not dignify the meme by linking to it.) Suffice it to say that I told the poster what I thought.

That anything an American politician can do to approximate the horrors perpetrated by Hitler is highly unlikely, to say the least. More insidious than this suggestion is the trivialization of Nazi atrocities that such statements involve.

These comparisons go beyond simple hyperbole. The problem is neither the logical fallacy nor the lack of imagination needed to commit it; rather, it is the aforementioned trivialization. If refusing to bake a cake for a couple is as bad as a Nazi policy that contributed to the deaths of millions of people, then it follows that Nazi policies that contributed to the deaths of millions of people were no worse than refusing to bake a cake. The dwindling number of Shoah survivors and World War II veterans distances us from the atrocities they endured and witnessed. We must keep their memories alive.

Several years ago, one of my students thought it would be funny to sieg heil me. (A classmate, to his credit, tried to stop him.) The young man in question was not evil, or even bad. He was immature, and he just didn’t get it. His dad got it; I could feel the man’s mortification over the phone when I told him what had happened. We are surrounded by words and phrases like “feminazi” and “Grammar Nazi” that dilute the reality of the Shoah, though, so it is not surprising that a teenager would not understand the gravity of the situation. As adults, we must set a good example by not taking the easy way out with shabby rhetoric, and we must set others on the correct path when they stray. When one of my students–or colleagues–tosses around the word “Nazi”–or “slavery,” or “rape”–I explain the idea and danger of trivialization and have the student find a less damaging and more accurate word or phrase. I owe it to those whose voices have been lost.

Yes, the title of this post is ridiculous. I recently visited Savannah, where I saw a store called Ye Olde Tobacco Shop. We’ve all seen “Ye Olde” attached to names in order (I assume) to make the name seem quaint or old-fashioned. It’s not the motivation but rather the origin of this construction, however, that interests me. To figure out where “Ye Olde” comes from, we need to look way back to the Anglo-Saxons. Their language, Old English, did not have a definite (nor an indefinite) article. The word that became “the” was the Old English version of “that.” Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Old English was an inflected language, meaning that the form of a word, as opposed to its position in the sentence, indicated its part of speech. A noun or pronoun had one of three grammatical genders–masculine, neuter, or feminine–and appeared in one of five cases: nominative (subject), genitive (possessive), dative (indirect object), accusative (direct object) or instrumental (the means by or with which something is done). In addition, nouns and pronouns could be singular or plural. To determine which for of “that stone” to use, a would-be translator could look at the following chart: Singular Nominative sē stān Plural Nominative þā stānas ………… Accusative þone stān Accusative þā stānas ………… Genitive þæs stānes Genitive þāra stāna ………… Dative þǣm stāne Dative þǣm stānum ………… Instrumental þӯ stāne Instrumental þǣm stānumStān is only one type of noun, but I won’t even try to go there. In fact, let’s put aside nouns and focus on the demonstrative “that.” Stān is a masculine noun, but remember that nouns and pronouns (including demonstratives) may be neuter, feminine, or plural, as well. The following chart shows all the forms of “that.” (Variations existed, but thankfully for all involved, they are beyond the scope of this post.) ………………….Masc. Neut. Fem. Plural (“those”) Nominative sē þæt sēo þā Accusative þone þæt þā þā Genitive þæs þæs þǣre þāra Dative þǣm þǣm þǣre þǣm Instrumental þӯþӯþǣm You’ll notice that almost every form of “that” begins with a þ (“thorn”–pronounced [th]). In time, as English became less inflected, the masculine singular sē became the word for “that,” but it also adopted the initial /Ɵ/ (th) sound of the other earlier forms. At some point, it started being used as a definite article, as well. How does any of this relate to “Ye Olde” anything? Eventually, as scribes wrote or copied manuscripts, they used a symbol for þ that looked a lot like their letter “y.” Thus, when later readers saw ye, they read it as “ye” instead of þe. “Ye Olde” means simply (and should be pronounced as) “The Old.” This last bit raises the question of where “olde” came from, but the answer will have to wait. ************************************************* I found the following sources helpful in refreshing my memories of things I learned long ago: Barnhart, Robert K. (Ed.) Chambers Dictionary of Etymology. New York: Chambers, 1988. Print. Brinton, Laurel J. and Leslie K. Arnovick. The English Language: A Linguistic History. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print. Cassidy, Frederic G. and Richard N. Ringler. Bright’s Old English Grammar & Reader. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971. Print. “A Short History of the Word ‘The.’” Xefer. n.p. n.d. Web. 8 April 2015.

The other day, I was creating a PowerPoint on subject-verb agreement and was working on a slide about collective nouns. Because several sample sentences on previous slides related to sloths (another story for another time), I typed “What is a group of sloths called?” into Google’s search bar. The first–and so far only–site I visited was Quizlet, which had a set of flashcards appropriately titled “Collective Nouns (Animals by NK).” I learned that a group of sloths is called a “bed.” Some other interesting names of groups of animals include:

a candle of anteaters

a cackle of hyenas

a prickle porcupines

a romp of otters

a wake of buzzards

an implausibility of gnus

an array of hedgehogs

a constellation of starfish

a wisdom of wombats

Finally: A group of bears–my second favorite animal–is called a “sloth.”

I look forward to sharing these with my students, and when I finish the PowerPoint, I’ll post it on this blog.

Because the Days of Awe–in Judaism, the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur–have just passed, the word “awe” is on my mind. I’m not sure if this is the case for everyone, but I say it the same way I express my happiness at seeing kittens: awww! Once again, I lack access to the Oxford English Dictionary, but once again, another OED–the Online Etymology Dictionary–satisfies my curiosity about a word’s origin. According to the latter, “awe” comes from ME aghe, which perhaps is from ON agi (“fright”), as is OE ege (“fear”). Of course, our “awe” means not simply “fear” but rather a combination of fear and profound respect. This more recent connotation seems to have arisen from the word’s use in translations of the Bible, where it appears in reference to G-d.

The word “awful” has undergone an even more dramatic semantic shift than “awe.” It originally meant what one would expect: “full of awe” or “worthy of fear / respect.” It seems to have taken on today’s more negative, yet diminished, meaning in the early nineteenth century. If I can get to the library this week, I will investigate further and post my findings.

In one of my classes today, the phrase “comparing apples and oranges” came up. When it did, I was able to share this little known fact: “Orange” referred to the fruit before it referred to the color. I think many people assume it’s the other way around, that the fruit is called an orange because of its color. In fact, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary (I don’t have access to the OED at the moment), the former preceded the later by some 400 years. Do you know any other words like that?